Western Regional Advocacy Project Calls for Support of "Right to Rest Act"

In the recent CA 3rd ruling on Allen v. City Of Sacramento, the written opinion reeked of 'do not look to us, blame the legislative branch'. Well, other than acknowledging equal enforcement (echoes of Papachristou v. City Of Jacksonville, perhaps?). It is nice to see that someone managed to get a California Appellate to commit their endorsement of oppression to paper (are we exhausted yet?).

http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/mainCaseScreen.cfm?dist=3&doc_id=2021295&doc_no=C071710

Anyway, given the CA 3rd passing the buck back, the #Right2Rest effort is very timely!

From personal experience; Monning et al are a dead end. Good luck with that...

"A new report by Berkeley Law’s Policy Advocacy Clinic (PAC) reveals a major rise in the criminalization of homeless people in California. The report details how more and more city ordinances—and the overzealous enforcement of them—are targeting this population.

[...]

Selbin’s team prepared the report for the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP), an umbrella organization of more than 120 homeless rights groups, which is working to present a “Right to Rest” bill to the state legislature. The bill that would serve as a key first step to decriminalizing homelessness in California, and encourage local governments to redirect enforcement resources to more humane and effective solutions."

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/18300.htm


"In California today, so-called “quality-of-life” laws aim to keep homeless people out of
public spaces, but do nothing to reduce homelessness or help homeless people. 51 Following the
history of sundown town, anti-Okie, and ugly laws, “quality-of-life” laws are a modern-day
example of local efforts to expel, punish, and otherwise discourage the presence of people
deemed undesirable—in this case, homeless people. “Quality-of-life” is a misnomer, because
there is no evidence that such laws improve the quality of life for anyone, and certainly not for
homeless people. 52 In this report, we refer to “quality-of-life” laws as “anti-homeless” laws to
better capture the intended targets and disproportionate impact of local codes that are used to
criminalize homeless people and remove them from public view. 53

[...]

While we focus here on the enactment of local codes, it is important to note that cities also
use state codes to criminalize homelessness in California. For example, California Penal Code
647(e) criminalizes lodging in “any building, structure, vehicle, or place, whether public or
private, without permission.” 59 Violation of Penal Code 647(e) constitutes disorderly conduct,
which is a misdemeanor. 60 And while anti-homeless laws are a key tool for criminalizing
homelessness, cities also selectively enforce otherwise facially neutral laws against homeless
people and use less formal means, including confiscating property and moving people along
through verbal warnings and other forms of harassment. We discuss our enforcement findings in
Section III.

[...]

Still, analysis of data over time reveals that enforcement of Penal Code 647(e) has declined
somewhat in recent years, with total arrests and citations hovering around 500 per year since
2007. Changes in policing strategy and successful lawsuits challenging the legality of the city’s
criminalization efforts are responsible for the downward trend in illegal lodging enforcement.
First, advocates sued the city in 2004, which resulted in a 2007 settlement that stopped police
officers from issuing citations and making arrests for illegal lodging on public property between
9 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. 132 In the wake of this settlement, “officers didn’t feel like they were being
supported by the city for the arrests [under this code].” 133

[...]

Anti-homeless laws enforced against people who have no choice but to live in public also
raise serious constitutional questions. 155 Most homeless people in California are unsheltered,
meaning they sleep in public out of necessity. 156 In this context, the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals held a Los Angeles municipal law that prohibited sitting, lying, or sleeping in public
places violated homeless people’s Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual
punishment. 157 When laws prohibiting sleeping or camping in public become an enforcement
priority, the resulting arrest campaigns may restrict the right of homeless people to move
freely. 158 And the confiscation of property that often accompanies such arrest campaigns—
highlighted previously in the case study of Sacramento—may violate Fourth Amendment
guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures. 159

At the same time, neutral laws used to criminalize homelessness often employ general terms
that allow for selective enforcement. Such laws have been challenged for violating the
Fourteenth Amendment’s constitutional guarantee of equal protection. 160 As noted above, in
1972, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Jacksonville, Florida vagrancy ordinance on the
grounds that it was unconstitutionally vague. 161 The court further reasoned that the law allowed
people to be arrested based on a lower standard than probable cause, which is required by law. 162
San Diego has increasingly relied on a facially neutral municipal code written to prohibit the
encroachment of dumpsters in public alleyways as a tool for criminalizing homelessness in
recent years. 163 Anti-panhandling codes, too, are often written vaguely enough to allow for
discriminatory enforcement. 164

Challenges to laws criminalizing homelessness on the grounds of arbitrary enforcement have
gained some traction in recent years. In June 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit struck down a Los Angeles municipal code that prohibited people from “us[ing] a vehicle
parked or standing... as living quarters.” 165 The court held that the code was unconstitutionally
vague and violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it failed to
clearly notify people of the conduct it criminalized, and because it promoted arbitrary
enforcement of the law against homeless people. 166 Many municipal codes have yet to be
challenged, perhaps because the people these laws target are among the least likely members of
society to use legal assistance. 167 As cities enact and enforce vague anti-homeless laws, they may
be increasingly vulnerable to constitutional challenges.

[...]

Ending the criminalization of homelessness in California requires action at the state level.
Cities have significant discretion in enacting anti-homeless laws and selectively enforcing them.
Some rely primarily on local anti-homeless laws, while others primarily enforce state laws. Local
agencies also display “creativity” in enforcement, repurposing unrelated municipal laws to target
the activities of homeless people when lawsuits threaten the use of established state or municipal
codes.

For this reason, restricting only some enforcement tools can be ineffectual. Where advocates
have succeeded in blocking enforcement of certain local or state codes, cities have opted to
enforce other laws. Inconsistent enforcement strategies across California also result in “justice by
geography” where homeless people are treated very differently. Perhaps most importantly,
without state-level intervention, California cities have been engaged in a race to the bottom by
increasing criminalization, hoping to drive homeless people elsewhere and make them someone
else’s problem. Comprehensive reform must target the full range of state codes and municipal
laws that criminalize homelessness."

http://ssrn.com/abstract=2558944

I wonder if the next 'phase' is the legislative blaming the executive...

To understand Monning, Stone, and Farr; perhaps it would help to understand the Carmel Highlands and the history of the Highlands Forum...

In 1999, the CIA created its own venture capital investment firm, In-Q-Tel, to fund promising start-ups that might create technologies useful for intelligence agencies. But the inspiration for In-Q-Tel came earlier, when the Pentagon set up its own private sector outfit.

Known as the ‘Highlands Forum,’ this private network has operated as a bridge between the Pentagon and powerful American elites outside the military since the mid-1990s. Despite changes in civilian administrations, the network around the Highlands Forum has become increasingly successful in dominating US defense policy.

Giant defense contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton and Science Applications International Corporation are sometimes referred to as the ‘shadow intelligence community’ due to the revolving doors between them and government, and their capacity to simultaneously influence and profit from defense policy. But while these contractors compete for power and money, they also collaborate where it counts. The Highlands Forum has for 20 years provided an off the record space for some of the most prominent members of the shadow intelligence community to convene with senior US government officials, alongside other leaders in relevant industries.

I first stumbled upon the existence of this network in November 2014, when I reported for VICE’s Motherboard that US defense secretary Chuck Hagel’s newly announced ‘Defense Innovation Initiative’ was really about building Skynet — or something like it, essentially to dominate an emerging era of automated robotic warfare.

That story was based on a little-known Pentagon-funded ‘white paper’ published two months earlier by the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington DC, a leading US military-run institution that, among other things, generates research to develop US defense policy at the highest levels. The white paper clarified the thinking behind the new initiative, and the revolutionary scientific and technological developments it hoped to capitalize on.

The Highlands Forum

The co-author of that NDU white paper is Linton Wells, a 51-year veteran US defense official who served in the Bush administration as the Pentagon’s chief information officer, overseeing the National Security Agency (NSA) and other spy agencies. He still holds active top-secret security clearances, and according to a report by Government Executive magazine in 2006 he chaired the ‘Highlands Forum’, founded by the Pentagon in 1994.

New Scientist magazine (paywall) has compared the Highlands Forum to elite meetings like “Davos, Ditchley and Aspen,” describing it as “far less well known, yet… arguably just as influential a talking shop.” Regular Forum meetings bring together “innovative people to consider interactions between policy and technology. Its biggest successes have been in the development of high-tech network-based warfare.”

https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e

Ignoring Panetta for the moment...

In the California State Legislature, Carmel Highlands is in the 17th Senate District, represented by Democrat Bill Monning, and in the 29th Assembly District, represented by Democrat Mark Stone.

In the United States House of Representatives, Carmel Highlands is in California's 20th congressional district, represented by Democrat Sam Farr

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmel_Highlands,_California

All the more reason to expect Monning et al to remain silent.

"While representatives in Oregon and Colorado are sponsoring the bill, no one has yet been willing to sponsor the bill in California. February 27 is the last day for the bill to be introduced into the legislature for this session—meaning if no one puts their name on it, the act is out for this year."

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/guess-which-liberal-state-has-500-laws-aimed-oppressing-homeless

Maybe if 'local activists' could get a 'hug' out of it?

I will be looking into this. It would explain Silicon Valley venture capital funding for PredPol and why they cornered the predictive policing market with the involvement of Ryan Coonerty, Steve Clark, Zach Friend and Caleb Baskin.

http://www.infowars.com/how-the-cia-made-google/

I will too. :)

California Senator Carol Liu (25th District) has sponsored CA SB 608. The Bill seeks to modify 647(e) (see bolded text below) and add new text.

647(e) Who lodges in any building, structure, vehicle, or place, whether public or private, without the permission of the owner or person entitled to the possession or in control of it. This subdivision does not apply to conduct that is protected pursuant to Section 53.81 of the Civil Code.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/15-16/bill/sen/sb_0601-0650/sb_608_bill_20150227_introduced.htm

The new text, 53.8 and 53.81, contains classifications and protections intended to defend the rights of homeless people.